Mobile Intelligence

10.3 WEB 2.0

Web 2.0 can be seen as a new paradigm that represents a user-centric approach of how Web services and related content are created and published. While the plain old Web since its emergence in the mid-1990s was dominated by professional service, application, and content providers, Web 2.0 now shifts the focus more toward the user as the main driving force behind the further development of the Web. As a result, Web 2.0 is often also associated with terms like democratization, openness, and social networking.

The Web 2.0 paradigm was essentially formed by a group around the publisher Tim O'Reilly and firstly appeared in the title of a Web conference in 2004. It resulted from a discussion between the people about the reasons of the collapse of the new economy and the conclusion that despite this collapse “the Web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity” [15]. However, it must be stressed that the hype taking place around Web 2.0 is not without controversy. A lot of people, among them the man who is known as the inventor of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, argue that Web 2.0 is rather a buzzword than a new innovative approach, because Web 2.0 is based on the same fundamental technology as Web 1.0, and there is basically nothing different between them [2]. However, regardless of which of these views one is willing to accept, when analyzing the history of LBSs and the shortcomings of their first generation, the ...